by Sarra Cannon
I’m mortified because now my whole table is staring at him.
He catches my eye across the bar and like a moron, I lift my hand in the most pathetic little wave. He smiles and looks down at his feet, then cuts his eyes back up toward me.
I thank god I’m already sitting because my knees go weak.
I tear my gaze away only to see Jenna fanning herself. I grab her hands, so embarrassed my cheeks flush.
“He’s fucking hot,” she says. “I say go for it.”
Colton shifts uncomfortably, and I laugh. I wonder if Jenna even realizes how hard he’s crushing on her. If she does, she’s playing it super cool.
I, on the other hand, am the opposite of cool.
“So how exactly do you think you screwed this up?” she asks.
I touch a palm to my forehead and grimace. “He asked me out and I said no.”
She collapses against the back of the booth and pretends to faint, falling toward Colton with the back of her hand raised to her head. He gladly catches her and she opens her eyes. “Why would you do that? When was this?”
“Last weekend,” I say. “Hey, did you guys ever show up at that party by the way?”
“No, we didn’t make it,” Colton says. They share a look that has me very suspicious about the current state of their relationship.
“Uh huh,” I say, studying her.
She makes a face, then raises her eyes to the ceiling, as if she has no idea what I mean. I remind myself to ask her about this when we’re alone.
“Well, it happened the night of the party,” I explain.
“If you like him, why would you say no?” Colton asks. “Women are so weird sometimes.”
Jenna punches him on the arm and he pretends to act hurt.
“What? It’s true.” He motions toward me. “She admits she likes him and yet she refuses to go out with him. What’s up with that?”
“My question exactly.”
I close my eyes at the sound of Knox’s voice. I want to slip under the table and disappear.
Slowly, I open one eye and peek out at him. “Please tell me you did not just hear that entire conversation.”
He smiles and my stomach does that weird flippy thing when his eyes light up. “Only the really juicy parts.”
I shake my head. I want to die. Or better yet, I want to strangle the two people sitting across from me.
“Can I get you guys something to drink?” he asks.
“Blue Moon,” Colton says, nodding in that way guys do when they order beer.
“I’ll take a shot of tequila and a Miller Lite.”
I tap my toes under the table. Knox looks at me expectantly and I shake my head. “I’m not twenty-one.”
“So?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “So I’m not old enough to drink.”
Across the table, Jenna’s shaking her head. “Just order something.”
I look up at Knox and he seems to be waiting. I honestly don’t even know what to do. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never had a drink before, but never in an actual bar. Only at parties and stuff.
Knox studies me. “Do you always do everything by the rules?”
I laugh and nod. “Yes,” I say. “Usually.” And it’s the truth. In some ways, I know it’s my biggest flaw. Not exactly the following-the-rules part, but the do-what’s-expected-of-me part. I hate to get in trouble or rock the boat. It’s hard-wired into me or something.
He leans toward me, his breath warm against my cheek. “Isn’t there some rule of logic, then, that says if you’re attracted to me and you want to spend time with me, then you should just do it? Or am I wrong about the way we feel about each other?”
He pulls away slowly, our faces so close, I’m taken back to the memory of that kiss. No, he’s definitely not wrong about the way I feel.
My heart beats so hard, I can feel it in my throat and in my ears. It’s such a leap of faith to move forward with him. I know my life is a total mess, but I want him.
“Does that mean you’re asking me out again?” I ask, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than I feel.
His lips don’t move, but he’s smiling. His eyes are shiny. “Does that mean you’re saying yes?”
I bite my lip, then take the leap. “Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I can’t believe I actually agreed to this,” I say to Knox as I hop into his truck. “You do realize that Joey hates me, right?”
He closes my door, then walks around and gets in. “She doesn’t hate you.”
“You weren’t here in high school with us,” I remind him. “The girl used to shoot daggers at me all through homeroom. She approached me in the girl’s bathroom senior year just to tell me how glad she was that I was going away to school and that she hoped she never had to see my face again.”
Knox tries to hide behind his hand, but it’s obvious he’s laughing.
“She really said that?”
“I swear on my life she did.”
“Wow, what in the world did you do to piss her off?”
“I have no idea,” I say, but that’s not entirely true. Joey's always hated the rich girls. Once we were old enough to know we were different, she resented me for it.
“Well, she knows all about you and me,” he says. “And she knows you’re coming today.”
“Are you saying she didn’t try to warn you about me?” I pry.
He shrugs and I nod. I knew it.
“What did she say?”
“She told me you and Preston Wright had a thing back in the day,” he says. “And that she doesn’t think you’re really the type to lower yourself for a guy like me.”
The words hurt me. Lower myself? Do people think I act like I’m better than them? Is that who I used to be?
“She’s talking about my past,” I say. “It’s been a long time since high school.”
“Not that long,” he says. “Two years.”
“It might as well be a lifetime.”
He doesn’t argue with that.
I stick my hand out the window and let it ride the wind, remembering when I used to do this as a child. I glance over and see he’s watching me from the corner of his eye.
I pull my hand back in, and scoot up next to him. He puts his arm around me and we ride like this the rest of the way to the lake.
We park and walk around to the lake side. There’s a fire burning inside a ring of cement blocks. A little ways out from there, a large table has been set up with four chairs. Joey is busy spreading a navy tablecloth across the top. She turns as we walk up and I see her eyes dart to our linked hands.
Her eyebrows cinch together in the middle for a brief moment, then she forces a smile.
Nerves knot in my stomach. The look on her face confirms what I already suspected - Joey does not want her cousin dating me. I’m beginning to think this was not such a good idea for our first official date.
“Hey Joey,” I say in the interest of making peace. “It’s been a while.”
She nods slowly. “Yes it has,” she says. “When Knox told me he’d saved you from disaster that night, I thought surely he had to be talking about someone else. I thought you’d written us all off in Fairhope, never to return.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that, but thankfully I don’t have to.
“Leigh Anne.” A tall, broad-shouldered man with wild brown hair steps around the corner of the house, then takes long strides toward us, his hand outstretched. There’s a big smile across his face. “I’m sure we’ve crossed paths before when you and Joey were in school, but I’m not sure we ever officially met. I’m Rob, but you can just call me Uncle Rob.”
He winks and shakes my hand, then claps Knox on the shoulder.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” I say. His smile is infectious and makes me feel a little better about the evening.
“What can we do to help?” Knox asks.
Joey pulls a bag from the back of her SUV. “You can take these and set t
hem out on the table. We’re almost ready with the food. I just need to pull the chicken off the grill.”
Knox takes the large bag and we begin taking out plates, napkins and utensils and setting them around the table.
There is a cooler full of fresh fruit, cole slaw and some kind of homemade drinks bottled without labels. I pull all these from the back of the van and start setting them out on the table just as Joey brings over a plate of steaming chicken and veggie kabobs.
Everything smells so delicious, as if we’re at a fancy restaurant instead of out on the lake in the middle of the woods.
“This looks amazing,” I say as we all take our places behind one of the folding chairs.
Joey studies my face, searching for sarcasm, but I am being completely genuine. “Thanks,” she says. Maybe her expression softens a bit.
“Let’s say grace,” Uncle Rob says. He grabs Joey’s hand, then reaches across the space for mine.
I’m not used to praying before meals, but I can tell right away this is a tradition in their family. They do it almost without thinking. I take Rob’s hand and then reach for Knox’s. Once the circle is complete, Knox lowers his head and begins to speak.
“Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this mild weather and for the opportunity to come together here in this beautiful place,” he says.
Everyone else has their eyes closed, but mine are open slightly, watching him. I never realized he was a religious kind of guy and it seems like a new layer of him is being unraveled in front of me.
“We thank you for the delicious food Joey has prepared for us and we also thank you for bringing Leigh Anne home to Fairhope and into our lives.”
He squeezes my hand and my heart dances.
“We ask that you bless this food in your son’s name. Amen.”
“Amen.”
We release hands and everyone takes their seat at the table, reaching out for various plates of food and filling their own to the top with fruit, veggies, slaw, chicken, and slices of homemade bread.
I take a bite of the chicken. “This is so incredible,” I say. “What kind of seasoning do you use?”
Joey smiles as she puts a napkin across her lap. “I’ll never tell.”
Knox laughs. “That’s Joey’s special seasoning mix,” he says. “She claims she’ll take it to the grave with her before she’ll tell anyone what’s in it.”
“Knox keeps threatening to hide a secret camera in the kitchen so he can steal her recipe,” Rob jokes before putting a huge spoonful of slaw in his mouth.
“And I’ll kill him if he ever tries it.” Joey kicks him under the table and Knox laughs and kicks her back.
The three of them all laugh and cut up with each other all through dinner, and I love the sound. My family never laughs around the dinner table. Hell, we hardly even talk around the dinner table anymore. Here, though, the conversation flows easily.
“So Leigh Anne, Knox tells me you’re working out at Brantley’s,” Rob says. “How do you like it out there?”
I hold my hand over my mouth until I can finish chewing the piece of squash I just stuffed in my mouth. “I love it,” I say. “I’ve already made some really good friends and the money’s good.”
“I bet,” Rob says.
Joey snorts and everyone looks at her.
“Sorry,” she says. “It’s just that I can’t imagine why someone like you cares about the fifty bucks a night you probably make working at Brantley’s.”
Knox’s hand slides over my knee and he gives her the evil eye.
“What?” she asks, leaning forward. “Her parents have more money than they know what to do with.”
“My parents’ money isn’t my money,” I say.
She meets my eye. “Isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs and takes a sip from the bottle in front of her. “I mean, have they ever denied you anything you ever wanted? If you went home right now and told them you needed a thousand bucks for a new purse or something, would they really say no? Or would they hand over their credit card?”
Her words are a punch to my gut. “It’s not about that,” I say.
“What is it about then?” she asks.
I shrug and pick at the lump of slaw on my plate. I’ve never really given it this much thought, so it’s hard to make a rational argument out of it. Besides, she’s right about my parents. If I asked them for money, they would hand it over no problem for something like a purse or a new car even. But that doesn’t mean my parents always support me or give me what I want. How can I possibly begin to explain that to someone like Joey who decided what she thought about me a long time ago?
“It’s about independence,” I say finally. “It’s about working hard for something for myself instead of being handed something that comes with a whole list of rules and expectations attached.”
Once the words are out of my mouth, I realize it’s the truth. I’d never put words to it like that, but it was an honest and real response that makes me feel suddenly open and exposed. Beside me, Knox is staring. I shift uncomfortably.
“You’ve changed a lot since high school,” she says, leaning back against her chair. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a new respect in her eyes. “It’s like when I got my first catering job outside of the bar. Don’t get me wrong, I was really happy to have my dad’s support with the business when I was getting my start, but he was sort of obligated to help me out.”
“The hell I was,” he says. “If your cooking sucked, I would have never hired you to do any of those jobs.”
Joey rolls her eyes and smacks her dad on the arm. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. I wouldn’t hire just anyone to serve food in my bar, trust me.”
“Anyway, my point is that your parents are supposed to support you and believe in you,” she says. “But sometimes I guess you don’t really start to believe in yourself until you get that outside validation or whatever.”
Our eyes meet over the table and for the first time since sixth grade, we’re playing nice.
Under the table, Knox’s hand finds mine and for the moment, I belong.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dinner’s been over for a while and the fire is dying down when we all decide to finally get up and clear the table.
Knox and Rob work on putting out the fire while Joey and I box up the leftovers and throw all the trash into a big black trash bag.
She pulls the navy tablecloth off and I see the beauty of the wood underneath for the first time. I’m mesmerized by the pattern. It’s obviously a custom table, handcrafted with great care. There are three different colors of wood used to create a kaleidoscope design. I run my hand along the smooth top.
“This table is gorgeous,” I say. “I can’t believe you guys are using this outside. It had to have cost a fortune.”
Joey shakes her head. “This is nothing,” she says.
I have to look up to see if she’s messing with me. “Nothing? I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s extraordinary.”
Joey glances up at Knox who walks up and wraps his arms around me.
“Do you mean that?” he asks. “You really think it’s nice?”
I nod and study the pattern again. “I love it.”
“You should show her,” Joey says.
“Show me what?” I pull away slightly and turn to question him.
He smiles. “Come with me.”
We walk across the yard to the big shed nestled in the woods beside the house. The building is crudely constructed with basic walls and a tin roof. The door is pretty beat up and when he takes me through it, I see that there’s nothing more to the floor than a concrete slab.
But when he flips on the light, what I see takes my breath away.
Inside the shed is the most gorgeous furniture I’ve ever laid eyes on. I let go of his hand and walk in, eager to get a closer look.
There’s a dresser with several different woods mi
xed together, creating a geometric pattern along the front. I run my hand across the top of another dining table made of some kind of dark red wood that’s so rich and beautiful.
A table on the far wall has several boxes of varying sizes lined up and I cross to get a better look. Many of them are made with mixed woods and textures, fitted together in such unique ways and shapes.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” I say, opening the top of one of the large boxes. I gasp at the intricate work that had to have gone into this. “Did you make all this?”
He moves up behind me and my heart races. I’m wearing shorts and he’s so close now, the edge of his jeans brushes the back of my leg. I shiver, wanting to lean my body into his.
“What do you think?”
I lower the top of the box, then run my fingers over the wood of another. “They’re beautiful.”
He steps to the side and I immediately miss the warmth of him even though it’s got to be ninety degrees in here.
He picks up one of the smaller boxes. “I’ve been playing with a few different designs and materials.”
He hands me the small box and I study it in awe. He’s put a jade inlay across the top and the box itself is made with both light colored wood and a very dark brown wood used in a rotating boxed pattern.
“This had to have taken hours.” My finger finds a small flaw in the wood and I am glad to find it. It lets me know he’s human. Real.
“I spend a lot of time out here thinking. I like to listen to music and experiment with new ways to put things together.”
I’m amazed at the detail in all of this work. It’s more than just furniture or woodwork. It’s art.
“The ones over on this wall are my favorite,” he says, taking my hand and leading me across the room to the back wall. “I like to spend my days off sometimes going to lumber yards around the state, looking for something different and unique. A few months back, I found this pile of discarded wood at a little place near Florida. It’s pine, but some of the sap got trapped inside the wood. The guy at the lumber yard said it was useless, but I thought it was kind of unique and cool.”
He pulls a sheet off a small table and my hand goes to my mouth. The wood is flat and smooth and he’s put some kind of shiny lacquer over the top, but I see what he means about the sap. It’s trapped deep inside the wood like an amber bubble. Almost like a jewel embedded by nature.